


The Sound of Silence

by orphan_account



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angst, Father/Son Incest, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Post-Devil May Cry 5, Quiet Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 11:14:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20096344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The reason for Vergil's silence is wholly unexpected, especially when he finally opens up about his absence throughout Nero's life.





	The Sound of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> My Secret Santa Summer Edition for an anonymous giftee over at the Spardacest Server! Whoever you are, I sincerely hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. 🖤 I feel like I never write enough angst.

Nero considers himself to be a merciful guy more often than not. He’ll go above in beyond to protect every living human soul and puts down demons as quickly as possible given his set of weaponry and expertise. Granted, he’s grown to draw joy from his job over the years, but he doesn’t let his personal enjoyment get in the way of his moral compass.

It’s that thought that has him removing his forearm from Vergil’s throat, where just moments ago he had come dangerously close to crushing it. A part of him whispers that, technically, the man underneath him is more demon than human. This is highlighted by the way Vergil remains unblinking, wholly untroubled by his inability to breathe as Nero momentarily lost himself in a wave of passion and blinding lust. Vergil’s fingers never faltered in their stroking, even as his eyes grew dull from lack of oxygen.

“Fucking say something,” Nero demands, his hands moving to the dusty office floor to hold himself up.

Vergil simply looks at him, tightening his grip on Nero’s cock but slowing his rhythm.

Devil May Cry is deathly silent save for Nero’s uneven breathing. The usual creak of the ceiling fan is absent, as is the low hum of the neon sign on the wall. The fading light of day filters in through the blinds, illuminating twirling dust motes and cutting across the hardwood floor. The rug beneath them is scratchy and dirty, one of the last items in their renovation plans Nero now wishes they had tackled first. Then again, he never expected to end up here.

As is usual of him, Nero had gotten angry and, by extension, impulsive. He had effortlessly kicked out Vergil’s feet from underneath him and pinned him to the floor, straddled him with demands Vergil was disinclined to acquiesce. Nero isn’t entirely sure how his stiff cock ended up in Vergil’s hand, or why he insists on rubbing his ass against the bulge beneath him, but here they are.

“Goddammit. At least, I dunno, grunt or something. How the fuck am I supposed to tell if you’re enjoying this or not?” Because it truly is that hard to tell. Vergil may look attractive while on his back, hair falling out of its impeccable style and all, but there isn’t a hint of interest on his face. Aside from slightly hooded eyes, there isn’t a single tell-tale sign that he even wants this and its setting Nero on edge.

With a frustrated growl, Nero tries to get off of him, but Vergil grabs a firm hold of his thigh and keeps him in place. He digs his fingertips into the rough fabric of Nero’s jeans, silently asking him not to.

“No. You know what? You want something, you ask for it. Otherwise, you can fuck off.”

Vergil sighs. “What is it you want me to say, Nero?”

“Anything! It feels like I’m humping a fucking pillow, for crying out loud. I can’t tell if you want to fuck or not. If you’re just doing this to, I don’t know, shut me up or something. You’re always so mouthy with everyone else but you don’t even acknowledge me even when you’re jerking me off!” Nero huffs, feeling some of the tension in his shoulders ease off now that he’s given voice to his frustration.

“I want this,” Vergil says, almost mechanically enough to make Nero punch him.

“Wow, that is such a turn-on. I can barely contain myself.”

To Nero’s surprise, Vergil breaks the unwavering eye contact first when he turns his head to the side to look towards the front doors. Nero can see his chest rise and fall now, his throat working around a swallow. It dawns on him then that there is something Vergil wants to say, but he’s holding back for whatever reason.

Nero hates the ease which Vergil can speak to everyone else with. He hates the way he can smile and even laugh when Dante says or plans something or another that leads up to no good. He can talk business with Morrison and Lady and even Nico. Hell, he can even be civil, almost _friendly_, with Kyrie. But when it comes to Nero, all he’s met with is wall after wall after wall – all impossible to break, too sheer to climb.

Rage simmers dangerously close to his chest, crawling towards his hands with the desire for violence. Nero could wring the words right out of him. Out of everyone in their troupe, Vergil owes Nero the most.

Because Vergil left him. Vergil abandoned him. Vergil hurt him.

“Silence can convey much more than mere words,” Vergil says.

“Yeah, well, unless you’re trying to convey how I’m forcing myself on you—”

“Do you honestly believe I would allow this were I unwilling?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Nero says, his frame sagging. “I don’t know what you want and don’t want. I don’t know you.”

“Clearly.”

Nero bristles and fights back the urge to beat his face in. “At least tell me why. Why you insist on keeping me at arm’s length when I keep trying to… to… I don’t know.” He rubs his palms across his face, grimacing at the dirt and hair that rub against his skin. “I just don’t know.”

They lapse into silence, neither moving as they both look in opposite directions.

Nero feels just as lost as he always has. When he first met Dante he had been overcome with the foolish notion that maybe things would get better if he learned of a biological family. Seeing someone so similar to him, Nero’s heart had opened to the possibility that maybe one day he would meet his father and mother, and that they would welcome him home with warmth and love and acceptance. 

This is the opposite of what he had dreamed of: a cold and aloof father with no regard for Nero’s aforementioned desires.

The man beneath him is but a stranger. Merely another person in Nero’s life that is here one moment and gone the next. Vergil is but a villain to his story, a hollow placeholder for any vessel capable of holding the love Nero has longed for for so long.

“I don’t know you,” Vergil says, echoing Nero’s sentiment.

“I’m your son.”

“You are, but you are also a man onto your own. You are not Dante. You are no one I have a frame of reference to—”

“Whose fault is that, huh? Maybe you’d have a fucking frame of reference had you stayed and not thrown me away like some soggy piece of trash!”

“I didn’t know.”

“That’s no fucking excuse, you piece of shit!” Nero sucks in a quivering breath as he slams a fist into the floor, splintering it. His shoulders shake with the force of his anger. “You’ve had every opportunity to make things right, but you won’t even acknowledge any of this. You once said that all you wanted to be was protected and loved, and yet you don’t even see me as someone worthy of those things too.”

Nero misses the softness V had shown him, the kindness he expressed in the dead of night. All of those things which are hidden somewhere inside of Vergil’s own being, and Nero wants nothing more than to desperately claw them out. He’s ravenous for it.

“I know you know what those things are, what they feel like, what it is to want them,” Nero continues.

“I fear my words were devoid of any depth.”

“Bullshit.”

Vergil shakes his head. “A long time ago, or maybe it was recently, those concepts were taken from me.”

Nero eases back again, resting his weight on Vergil’s lap. He’s hesitant to speak, lest Vergil reconsider his sudden candidness. “Was it when you split yourself?” Not that that has ever stopped him from running his mouth.

Vergil turns his sights to the ceiling fan and Nero can see what little warmth his eyes harbored leave without a trace. What Nero had considered an emotionless expression now pales in comparison to the blankness of Vergil’s features; a shift that is disturbing to watch. It is much like seeing a corpse talk.

“I was younger than you when what little I had was taken from me. He took my father, my mother, my brother. Then he basked in the pleasure of taking my life over and over, but not before he violated every bit of my cursedly immortal body and mind. From a happy childhood, to an unstable youth, to nothingness. There is nothing more frightening, no fate worse than living chained and lifeless inside a husk created to be your prison.”

“I was not aware of what I had done,” Vergil continues, “what I left behind in Fortuna. And I will admit that I would not have cared had I known, consumed as I was with the need to exact vengeance on the demon that destroyed my life. Nothing would have changed. I would have continued onward, cut down my brother, lost myself to the torments of the Underworld and its king.”

“Death found me once, on an island, and I had welcomed the release. But then I was pulled back. Put back together again, only to be taken apart. Hopelessness, I learned, is a concept much worse than death. It has taken me this long to understand that what brought me to you, Nero, was not the Yamato nor the promise of truly ending. The reason why still escapes me. How I, as nothing but a shadow in an already dark room, followed your light back to the human world. And, perhaps entirely unintentionally, that light is the reason for this second chance at a proper life.”

Nero remains motionless, staring down at Vergil with a sting in his eyes he doesn’t want to accept. He had heard whispers of the things Vergil had done, many of them cruel and unforgivable, but he had never once been privy to the things he had endured. While none of it truly absolves him, Nero can’t help this sense of empathy towards his father. That he has talked at all, opened up about things as dark and forbidden as his own past, grants Nero a new perspective he cannot quite make sense of.

“I’m sorry,” Nero says, because he doesn’t know how else to react.

Vergil narrows his eyes at him, but life has now reentered his veins. There’s color to his cheeks, the gleam of presence in his eyes. “There is nothing to apologize for.”

“My bad for trying to be humane about your trauma.”

Vergil tenses enough that Nero readies himself to strike first, but nothing happens. Vergil simply sighs, and aimlessly smacks Nero’s side. “That is why silence is preferable in the face of uncertainty.”

That is when it clicks for Nero, the reason for Vergil’s detachment. He’s uncertain of how to approach, how to start the conversation, or even how to connect aside from violence and physicality.

They’re far more alike than he had originally thought.

“Okay,” Nero says, “I guess I get it.” With that out of the way, Nero decides to abide by Vergil’s personal philosophy.

Reaching under him, Nero does quick work of undoing Vergil’s pants. They’ve long since gone soft amidst the difficult exchange, but Nero isn’t letting this go just yet. Not when Vergil’s eyes now look tired, his demeanor soft around the edges in the wake of his pouring out. He looks so much younger, ready to be lulled into sleep, and Nero figures the best he can do is to aid him in his quest for rest.

Nero frees Vergil’s cock and aligns it with his, softly stroking them together in hopes to reignite what has been lost.

He wants to make a quip in hopes of lightening the mood, say something along the lines of how Vergil’s so old he can’t even get it up, but he crushes it under a sense of duty. Nero sees the moment Vergil catches onto his efforts, and the way his eyes grow warm for the very first time hits Nero’s chest harder than any weapon can.

Instead, Nero focuses on listening.

He realizes that Vergil has his own language, and he feels like an idiot for not picking up on it sooner. Maybe it’s because of his constant need to fill the space around himself with noise and nonsensical meanings, but now that Nero is silent, he can hear the flutter of Vergil’s heart, the minuscule hitches of his breath, the near soundless friction of his boots moving against the rug. It’s a sweet and timid composition of desire that can otherwise become lost in the cacophony that is Nero’s thoughts.

Shifting atop Vergil hips, Nero rests his hands on his shoulders and sinuously moves over him. It doesn’t grant a lot of friction, but it’s a gradual give and take of slowly building pleasure that has Vergil licking his lips with want.

Nero half-grins down at him, delighted in how receptive and expressive Vergil now seems despite the absence of any blatant change. He continues to bite his own tongue, letting their pants and quiet grunts fill the air instead, until Nero’s struck with an idea that will truly keep him from ruining the moment.

Leaning down with eyes tightly shut, he pushes their mouths together.

The chaste press quickly devolves into a mess of tongue and teeth, hands scrambling across backs and necks, stroking and tugging hair, all the while humping each other to the tune of slaked loneliness.

Chest to chest, forehead to forehead, Nero pants against Vergil’s open mouth as they chase achingly sweet release. The pressure builds and builds, and Nero watches Vergil’s eyes close as he moans, everything but pleasure gone from his stunning face.

Nero bites his bottom lip when he feels the gush of hot seed against his abdomen, Vergil’s head tipping back with ecstasy etched so clearly across his frame as he cums. His gloved hands find Nero’s ass and move him harder, faster, desperate and dirty until Nero too gasps out his release, ending with a growl low in his throat as he licks his way back into Vergil’s mouth.

They linger in their mess, their hands finding each other and fingers joining in an intimate gesture that makes Nero’s heart bleed. Vergil presses kiss after kiss to his bottom lip, seemingly unfazed by their state of being and the late hour.

“I can feel you in the silence,” Vergil says, soft enough to nearly be missed. “Every emotion echoes inside of me. Your anger and sadness, all of which I deserve. But also, your love, as big and unconditional as it is.” He smiles. “It’s terrifying and overwhelming.”

Nero clenches his jaw, unsure of how to answer, so he says nothing.

“Silence in your presence is like a balm,” Vergil continues, “one I’ve longed for but am unworthy of.”

Small blessings, Nero figures. Or a curse.

“Dante will be back soon,” Nero says quietly, but rather than get up he lays fully on Vergil, forehead tucked against his neck.

“I’m not worried.” Vergil drapes his arms across Nero’s back, holding him close. “I took his key when he wasn’t looking.”

Nero laughs, all the while melting into his father’s embrace. “He could probably break down the door if he wanted to.”

“And have to pay for it? Doubtfully.”

“You deal with him, then. I need a nap.”

Vergil drops a tender kiss to Nero’s temple, pouring into it at least the beginnings of Nero’s heart’s desires. “Then sleep, darling boy, knowing that I’m watching over you.”

The knot in Nero’s throat grows tenfold, but all he does is nod and accept that maybe, just maybe, Vergil is right.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi or just see me gush about stuff on twitter at **[astramaxima](https://twitter.com/astramaxima)!**


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